Greece’s contribution
What do you think Greece can bring to NATO in the 21st century? Greece is a long-standing member of NATO, it has been a member for over 50 years and has made a significant contribution to the Alliance. Greece is a very important player in the Mediterranean region, in the capabilities it represents in terms of air, land and sea. Greece has also been improving the deployability, the usability of its forces. Your country spends more on defense than the NATO average. There was a very recent exercise centered on Crete that included the participation not only of NATO forces but those from other countries in the Mediterranean Dialogue, which, as I said earlier, are extremely important for NATO. Greek Commander of Chiefs of Staff Admiral Panayiotis Hinofotis is very engaged personally with the Mediterranean Dialogue. In Thessaloniki is the headquarters of the NDC-GR (NATO Deployable Corps, Greece); the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operations Center is to be established in Crete. It will help standardize and develop procedures necessary for all maritime forces that carry out interdiction operations in the fight against terrorism.
